Frank, following Jim, writes:

> Interesting development.  There is apparently a difference in having a
>  contract claim to your own proteins, etc., versus having an ownership right
>  in a patent which claims the sequence of those proteins.
>
>  The researchers who found and sequenced (and filed a patent on) that guy's
>  unusual gene are the inventors and owners of the patent.  They have claimed
>  the sequence of that protein (and the gene making that protein) in isolated
>  form -- not in its natural form.  You can't patent a gene or protein in its
>  natural form -- you have to isolate it from the body or otherwise
>  manipulate it first.

I watched that 60 Minutes story last night, too. While it wasn't nearly the
misrepresentation that the Fox network presented a few weeks ago with the
Moon Hoax, it wasn't altogether accurate either. It was far more sensational
than informational.

If you go to google and type in "hiv cd4 receptor", you'll find ten thousand
articles about a genetic "defect" that would, under ordinary circumstances,
be considered to be a mildly debilitating disorder of the immune system --
but that in the presence of novel adaptive landscape that the HIV virus
represents, becomes an enormous benefit.

A very succinct and clear explanation of the gene variant that apparently
causes this complete immunity to AIDS appears at:

      http://www.sciam.com/0997issue/0997obrien.html

One of the authors, Stephen J. O'Brien, has done excellent genetic work in
conservation biology, with his most controversial work dealing with the
genetic diversity in cheetahs (There is almost none nowadays, indicating that
the population of all cheetahs, sometime in the recent past, collapsed to
nearly zero, creating a genetic "bottleneck").

In every plague, there are individuals, for one reason or another, which
prove to be immune to the plague. If the mortality rates are high enough,
these surviving individuals form the basis for the succeeding populations --
and all succeeding generations are therefore automatically immune to the
extremely dire consequences of the plague, and thus essentially live
disease-free lives.

This appears to be the circumstance that occurred with the Green Monkey of
Central Africa. A very close variant of HIV is endemic within populations of
this species, but apparently has no effect on the individuals, under most
normal circumstances. See:

      http://www.aegis.com/pubs/aidsline/2000/oct/A00A1018.html
      http://www.aegis.com/pubs/aidsline/1991/jul/M9170882.html

Knowing the construct of the gene "defect" is a part of what was patented --
but much more than that what was patented was the knowledge of one way to
defeat the HIV virus, which may eventually lead to a vaccine or some form of
palliative.

If humans wished to engage in this form of natural selection, where 98% of
the population would succumb to the effects of AIDS, each succeeding
generation would survive at greater numbers so that within 10 or 20
generations, humans too would be immune to HIV, or have reduced its effects
to little more than a one more childhood disease.

Wirt Atmar